


An Inconvenient Proposal

by lilpocketninja



Category: Marvel 616, Young Avengers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-29
Updated: 2010-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:23:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilpocketninja/pseuds/lilpocketninja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy's efforts to propose are frustrated by one disaster after another, mostly because the universe hates him. (Schmoop Bingo fic: Prompt "Public Proposal." My card is <a href="http://lilpocketninja.livejournal.com/89121.html">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
In the dark, Billy couldn't see Teddy's face properly and he wasn't sure he wanted to. He had intended to choose a more casual restaurant for their five-year anniversary dinner. Once they arrived, however, he saw the sparse candles and menus in french and realized he had misjudged the place; now he only hoped he could afford the bill. Even though they weren't usually the type to go anywhere fancy, even on special occasions, Billy's boyfriend seemed happy enough with the place.

Billy envied Teddy's ability to look at ease when they were both so under-dressed. As always, the shapeshifter looked like a model fresh from the catwalk while Billy just felt like an idiot. Teddy failed to notice Billy's distress and took his hand across the table. "Nice place."

Billy winced and shrugged. "I thought so. It's a little ... more..."

"More," Teddy said, chuckling. He drew Billy's fingers to his lips and kissed them. "But it's nice."

"Yeah?" Billy's pocket felt too heavy, and his free hand twitched to draw the little box out of its hiding place. He resisted; he would wait until dessert. Or maybe even after they left the restaurant, so he could see Teddy's reaction. Both seemed equally attractive, but neither dislodged his heart from his throat. His mother had told him to wait, that they were moving too fast. At the moment Billy agreed, if only because it might give him an excuse to give up.

Even after a month of preparing - ninja antics getting Teddy's band size, buying the ring, deciding when and where, and reserving the place -- Billy didn't feel ready. Maybe they should wait another year or two, or three, or four... or maybe Billy could wait for Teddy to ask him about settling down. They could go on the way they were, living together in a tiny studio apartment and putting off adult life for a bit longer.

Billy's musings kept him quiet until a small and soft object hit his head and bounced off. When he looked up he spotted the offending object -- a pea -- rolling across the fine linen tablecloth. His boyfriend wore a look of smug amusement.

"That's rude," Billy said with a sniff. Teddy ruined the effect by flicking another pea that hit Billy right between the eyes. Scowling, Billy plucked it from the table and threw it back.

"You're rude," Teddy answered in a sing-song. Billy snorted and shook his head when Teddy plucked the pea off the table and popped it into his mouth. Dork. He tried pouting about Teddy throwing food at a fancy place, but all the tension between them had disappeared.

Teddy smiled, somewhere between cunning and shy, and Billy felt his stomach flip over. Divested of its shoe and now running up Billy's leg, Teddy's foot failed to help matters. Watching at his boyfriend flirting shamelessly, Billy wondered why he was so worried about this. He made a decision.

"Teddy, there's something I want to ask you," Billy began. Teddy raised his eyebrows but didn't interrupt, for which Billy felt grateful. This was hard enough without having to start all over. "I, um, have been thinking recently and--"

From both their pockets came the twin buzz of Avengers' communicators. Teddy's face fell. "One date a month, if that. You'd think the bad guys could manage to schedule their crime around it."

Billy waved for the check, flashing Teddy an apologetic smile. "That's why they're bad guys. Totally inconsiderate. At least it wasn't in the middle of sex this time."

No, just in the middle of Billy spilling his guts. Fabulous.

The ashes hadn't cooled when they arrived on the scene. Though the Fantastic Four had handled actually stopping the Doombots' rampage, they'd done it with their usual flair for destruction. The older heroes had knocked over and/or lit on fire several occupied buildings in the process. That was where the newest line-up of the Avengers came in: under the leadership of Patriot, they had developed a reputation for being careful with civilians and responsible about cleanup. Now the authorities depended on them whenever a disaster called for superhuman repairs.

Billy squinted up at an apartment tower still smoking while he wiped the sweat from his eyes. He and Teddy had barely had time to stash their clothing after they received the emergency signal; Billy, unwilling to leave the ring in an alley someplace, had tucked it into his boot and hoped it would stay there until he got Teddy alone again.

"Twenty-six still on the twelfth floor, we think," someone said on Billy's left; he twisted sharply to look at the firefighter behind him. The woman -- Vega, according to the the patch on her uniform -- held up her hands, apologizing for the idiotic move of sneaking up on a jumpy superhero, before continuing:

"The sixth through eleventh floors are empty, but they're also structurally unsound from that --" She jerked her head upward, where Billy could see the massive Ben Grimm-shaped hole in the wall. It went deep, maybe deep enough to knock out a couple of weight-bearing structures. Great. "I'm not sending my guys climbing anything that unsteady when we've got flyers here."

"On it," he said while he scanned the street looking for his nearest teammate. It was Teddy, in conference with two police officers and an EMT across the street.

"Hulkling!" Billy waved when he caught his boyfriend's attention. "Going up there."

"Need backup?"

"Nah, I've got it."

"Be safe!" Billy didn't bother answering before he shot into the air toward the row of twelfth floor windows. If they finished this quickly, maybe they could go someplace private and he could finish what he'd started. After smashing into the apartment nearest the corner, he took a deep breath and headed in. The hazy waves of heat that assaulted him as soon as he entered sucked the air from his lungs. In his boot, the ring warmed and rubbed uncomfortably against his foot.

"Hello?" He called. Getting no answer, he tried it again, louder. Nothing. He stepped into the apartment. After a moment wasted searching the empty apartment, he proceeded into the hall. The building's wings formed an L-shape; Billy, unwilling to risk his weight damaging the fragile floor, floated along the hallway calling out for people. When he rounded the corner into the shorter hall he spotted a family hovering by the stairwell. They looked up at him with a mixture of terror and relief, but no one moved.

Excellent. Panicked civilians. _Exactly_ what Billy needed when he wanted to wrap this up speedily. He entertained the idea of magically chunking them all out the window, but dismissed it. Mostly because Patriot would murder him, interrupted marriage proposals or no.

"Hey, I'm one of the good guys. It's not safe in here though. I need to get you out." Billy spoke short, simple sentences in a soothing tone, the way Kate had taught them for dealing with civilians in a crisis. This group hesitated, but a little boy broke away and held his arms up to Billy.

"You're the witch, right?" The boy demanded. "Only you look bigger on TV."

"Everybody looks bigger on TV. C'mon." Billy hoisted the boy up onto his hip and reached out to an older woman in the center of the group. The woman took his hand, and after that the rest of them crowded around him. Billy concentrated on blocking out the heat and noise until he could focus on the street below; a moment later the group reappeared on the sidewalk near an ambulance.

A strong hand on Billy's back steadied him. When Billy turned, he discovered it was Teddy's.

"You okay?" Teddy asked in an undertone. Billy nodded and wiped the sweat out of his eyes again.

"Fine. I think there are more people up there, though. I'm going back up."

"Please be careful."

"I'm always careful."

Six trips later Billy wished he had accepted the offer of backup. He had the building clear, but his muscles ached and soot caked his skin. A far cry from date-material now, he thought as he landed for the last time. He didn't see Teddy right away, but a message on his communicator from Eli told the team to assemble a few streets up. Too tired to fly, Billy set off walking in that direction. The ring in his boot had somehow slipped under his heel and he felt it press into the sole of his foot with every step.

The media had mobbed the Avengers; Billy had to shove people away in order to reach his teammates. Teddy relaxed when he saw Billy, though Billy caught the brief flash of amusement caused by his appearance. He scowled.

"The building was on fire, T," he grumbled. "There was ash everywhere."

Teddy didn't respond; instead he ran the pad of his thumb over the ridge of Billy's cheekbone. It came away black. "You need a bath."

"Thanks for that." Despite the bickering, Billy leaned into Teddy's side and used his boyfriend for support while they dodged the press.

"Any time." Teddy stopped walking for a minute in order to duck down and kiss Billy. The adrenaline and frustration made Billy respond with more aggression; he ran his fingers through Teddy's hair, leaving dark streaks in the pale blond, and pulled Teddy down to keep him there while he extended the hungry kiss. Aware that they might damage the thin veneer of professionalism the current team of Avengers at least tried to maintain, Billy wished they were back home again.

His magic decided 'in the hallway outside their apartment' was close enough to home to satisfy him, and Billy couldn't really object with Teddy's tongue shoved in his mouth. Teddy pushed him against the door, sending up a puff of ash over the two of them, and bore down with more kisses. Billy realized too late they hadn't changed out of their uniforms before returning -- the ring digging into his foot did that nicely -- and he fumbled at the door. Teddy kept pushing him back even as the door swung and he fell flat on his ass.

Laughing, Teddy fell down beside him. He threw one leg over his boyfriend's hips and drew him closer. Billy protested the rough treatment with a wordless grunt of annoyance; Teddy turned to more tender kisses. Once he had part of Billy's top peeled back, though, the line of skin and ash was clearly visible and Teddy pulled back.

"I love you and all, B," Teddy said and kissed the top of Billy's head. Billy looked up in time to see him grimacing at the taste of ash. "But you need to shower."

"Really do," Billy said but made no move toward the shower. Instead he tried to tug off his boot. "But first I need to ask you something."

Teddy seemed as though he might speak, but they were interrupted -- again -- by the beep of their communicators. "Fuck!"

Teddy groaned. "Sometimes I hate our job."

"You think we can leave it?"

"Nope. With great power comes great responsibility. Get up." Billy grabbed Teddy's proffered hand and stood up, hitting the button on his communicator to get a three dimensional sit-rep. When they opened the big window they used for flying in and out, Billy could hear wailing sirens in the distance and his screen confirmed the problem -- a minor super villain knocking over a jewelry store -- was close by.

The flight downtown, though short, still wore Billy out. When he touched down the uncomfortable digging in his foot reminded him of the ring, again, and that was two strikes against this idiot. The third came when the guy pulled a gun and took aim at Teddy. Billy felt his control slipping away like sand through his fingers. The scene exploded in white.

When he came back to himself, the rest of the team had most of the bad guys tied up. The police chief was speaking to Eli in a low voice and kept glancing over at Billy, as if he had never done this before. As much as he wished he could, Billy didn't have the energy to tell them exactly what he thought of their paranoia. Anyway, cursing on the evening news made his mother frown.

The warm mass where he rested his head shifted slightly, and Billy realized that Teddy was cradling him. He looked up at Teddy's face; Billy thought it would be pale, if it weren't an odd mint color. "I thought you had done yourself in."

"For a bunch of thugs like this? No way." Billy had to stop to cough before continuing: "Galactus or bust."

Teddy huffed and pushed Billy's hair out of his face. "Even so, we're officially taking the rest of the day off. No more calls, period, I don't care if it _is_ Galactus."

"I'm okay with that." Billy was so okay with it that he closes his eyes again in the middle of the street. They would to have to haul him away if they want him to move any time soon. Except:

"Weren't you going to ask me something?" Billy opened his eyes again and stared at Teddy blankly. What--? Oh, right. He struggled to sit up on his own. He only made it to a kneeling position, which was at least appropriate.

"Right. I was going to ask you something." Bemused, Teddy watched as Billy tugged off his boot and shook it out. The ring fell to the the sidewalk with a clatter and Teddy's expression shifted from confusion to surprise. Neither of them noticed that the silence that fell on the street as people realized what was happening.

Billy scooped the ring from the sidewalk, fumbled, dropped it, and picked it up again. His fingers were too sweaty to grip it properly so he held it in his fist instead. He paused, waiting for something horrible to interrupt them. Maybe it would be aliens; they hadn't done aliens in a while. When nothing came and the silence stretched past comfortable Billy coughed. "Right. T, I know we've talked about this a lot, but I think it's time to finally make it official."

When Billy stopped to gasp for breath and nothing else interrupted him, he realized there was nothing more for it: it was time. "Will you marry me?"

Teddy's 'yes' didn't come in words. Instead he grabbed Billy and pulled him forward into a messy kiss, ashes and grime be damned.

Much later, they both realized the moment hadn't passed unnoticed: flashbulbs were going off all around them, and the guy from the Daily Bugle kept trying to poke his microphone between them to get a comment on who knows what. Teddy scowled at them all and pulled his fiance closer. Billy just laughed.


	2. Epilogue

Billy hadn't stopped laughing when they teleported back to their apartment and landed in the middle of the front room. Teddy rolled his eyes, probably because Billy wasn't taking the invasion of their privacy seriously enough, but Billy didn't care. Not when he had finally gotten what he wanted: the annoyed blond sprawled on the carpet beside him.

He laughed harder when he noticed at the ash spread across his boyfriend's -- fiance's -- face, from where the two of them had kissed earlier. It covered most of his jaw, except where sweat had run down and left clean trails in the grime. Billy reminded himself, forcibly, that licking ash off his boyfriend was a terrible idea.

 

"Those stupid vultures ruin everything!"

 

Billy sat on his kneels and put one arm over Teddy so that he could push into his personal space to answer him. Up close he could just make out the fading notes of Teddy's cologne from earlier in the evening, and the smokey smell that clung to his uniform. "No, it's good this way. We won't have to have any awkward conversations with my parents."

 

"Or your Nana."

 

"Or my Nana." Billy shrugged. "She's finally going to have to give up the nice Jewish girl shtick."

 

"That or I'll have to convert." Teddy's fingers skimmed Billy's costume to find the seam separating the upper and lower parts. When he found it Billy sighed happily; the cool air of the dark apartment and Teddy's warm fingers both felt fantastic on his skin.

 

"We're Jewish. It's a little more complicated than saying a prayer and wishing really hard."

 

"I know that, dork."

 

"And anyway, you're not nice. Or a girl, most of the time. So you'll have to settle for being a really hot gentile boy." Teddy answered that by pinching Billy's side. Twisting away, Billy curled into a ball for defense. "Stop that!"

 

"I am so nice."

 

"You're not being very nice right now!" Billy tugged the zipper of Teddy's coveralls and pushed them off his shoulders; only the scarf remained on his naked upper body. "If you were nice you'd be nakeder."

 

"Nakeder? Is that a word?" Teddy turned his attention to Billy's trousers. The fumbling like a teenager only made him more endearing, Billy decided.

 

"More naked." He tugged at Teddy's coveralls, which stubbornly refused to go any further than Teddy's hips. When Billy realized the costume wasn't going anywhere unless Teddy moved, he disappeared them somewhere else. Antartica, for example. He didn't want Teddy to go anywhere, after all, not as long as he was working on relieving Billy of his clothes.

 

Finally - finally!- Teddy managed to undo the clasp and yanked them down, freeing Billy completely. The costume, Billy decided, was too tight. There would be pictures of his erection on the internet tonight.

 

"You know," Teddy said as he watched Billy squirm under him, "maybe we should wait until I make an honest man out of you."

 

Billy refrained from kicking him, but only just. "And maybe you should start sucking my dick. And I do mean that literally."

 

"Do you now?" Teddy, eyes lidded and grin sharp, looked like the cat who got the cream. Or the cat about about to get the cream. Billy snickered. "Want to share with the class what's so funny, Bill?"

 

"Nah." Billy wiggled again and Teddy's eyes flicked downward. The flush on his cheeks darkened and his nostrils flared. Anyone else might have missed it, but Billy knew what Teddy looked like when he wanted something.

 

"That's," Teddy cleared his throat, "that's rude. Laughing at a guy when his pants are probably in Alaska."

 

"Antartica, actually."

 

"That's worse!"

 

"Teddy, if you don't get down there in the next five seconds, I am taking care of this myself and

taking the ring back."

 

Teddy's face fell and Billy worried he might have been taken seriously, but Teddy's mouth started working its way down from Billy's neck and hitting all the good spots in between. He sucked on the bony rise of Billy's shoulder first, inhaling his smell. It was hot, the attention to detail Teddy had when he focused. Billy thought it might be a Skrull thing -- he'd never had a human lover, it was all guesswork -- but he didn't know for sure.

 

That attention moved in a hot, wet line to his collarbone next, and then his nipples. Billy moaned so loudly that the neighbors on all sides probably heard him. He didn't care.

 

When his slow exploration of Billy's body reached its end goal, Teddy pulled away and stopped touching him altogether. Billy's hips jutted up helpfully to remind him of what to do but Teddy snorted - warm burst of air on overheated skin - and pushed them back down.

 

Billy's cock twitched when Teddy let out another breath; he dug his hands into the carpet because he couldn't be still in the face of the anticipation but he refused to break this spell. Teddy's eyes flicked up -- they were black, only a thin ring of color around the edges -- and down as if he realized how crazy he made Billy looking like that. From the way his hands shook against Billy's hips, Billy guessed the feeling was mutual.

"Teddy." Billy's hands left the carpet to wander in Teddy's hair, Dirt caked the top layer, and his hands were just as bad, but he found silk underneath. Billy stroked it and played with Teddy's earrings while he rasped encouragement.

 

Teddy drew him out until his hips bucked wildly and he gasped, the only warning before his come spilled into Teddy's mouth and down his chin. Teddy waited until Billy finished before he pulled back and licked away the last of it. Billy stared. When Teddy returned the look with a shy glance, he pulled his fiance down for a kiss.

 

Teddy returned it, but in his kiss Billy felt an edge of wanting that made him realize they weren't done yet. Without breaking the kiss he shoved Teddy's underwear around his hips and rolled so that he was half on top of Teddy. His back arched upward; Billy struggled to remain on top. He used all of his weight to push Teddy to the floor again, though he knew that he could throw him off at any time, and kissed him into submission.

To keep him that Billy pinned both Teddy's wrists; when his fingers brushed the ring on Teddy's left hand he only grinned. He'd done it, he really had; they were getting _married_. Teddy grinned, as if he knew exactly what Billy thought -- and maybe he did. Billy could never tell for certain.

Teddy's hips pushed up so that his erection slid between Billy's thighs, and when Billy tightened them slightly he swore that his lover's eyes crossed. "Mm, yeah, Billy. Like that?"

"Uh-huh," Billy agrees, moving at Teddy's pace until they're both sprawled in a hot, sticky mess over the living room floor. For a few minutes there was only heavy breathing and clinging to each other; Teddy caught his first and laughed quietly.

"Oh my god, we're getting married," he said, though Billy thought he spoke to himself more than Billy. "We're getting _married._ We're not old enough to get married."

"Pretty sure we are, Ted," Billy answered slowly. "We're not teenagers anymore."

Teddy's grin faded and they both looked at each other; Billy's eyes widened and he chewed on his lip. They weren't, were they?

"Yeah, 'cause we don't have to worry about your mom walking in right now." To prove his point, Teddy gestured to themselves and the mess they'd made. It broke the tension building in Billy's chest and he couldn't help it: he laughed again.


End file.
